Don't mention the war
I'm in God's own city. That's Manchester to you. You'll have to forgive this north-west boy's local pride.
The watchword here is Basil Fawlty's "don't mention the war". The war in question is, of course, the war over the succession. One minister greeted me with a prediction that we're in for a week of "mush and gush". Blair-ites, Brown-ites and anybodyelse-ites share a desire to maintain the political ceasefire.
Tony Blair, as ever, put it better than anyone else (watch the interview here) when he said that Labour had gone AWOL from the British public and had to show this week that they'd learnt their lesson.
This injunction will succeed, I suspect - but only up to a point. There'll be no stopping people talking about the leadership - indeed, the foreign secretary backed Gordon Brown within minutes of the PM saying that the Cabinet had all agreed not to talk about the leadership issue. However, most will try to do so in a calm and civilised way.
There's one or two "buts" to add to that prediction though:
"But 1" is that, like the little boy in the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, someone at this huge gathering may not have cottoned on to what they're supposed to think and say.
"But 2" is that the real conference takes place not on the stage but late (very late) at night in the bars here - and alcohol and weariness have a way of making people forget their inhibitions.
After all, who imagined that Walter Wolfgang would steal the show last time.
PS: This is not, by the way, the first conference Labour has held in Manchester. It's the third. The Labour Representation Committee - the forerunner of the party - held the first here just a century ago - it lasted one day. The second was in January 1917, in Manchester's Albert Hall during the First World War.
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Comments
Sorry Nick, I've got to mention the war! the Iraq war that is.
It is sickening to watch sycophants like Hazel Blears fawning over Blair, a man whose actions have contributed to the deaths of possibly hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and elsewhere.
How convenient it is for them to be able to brush these matters under the table and take comfort from being in their own little club of ostriches, or should that be toadies? whilst because of their decisions, hundreds of people a week are being slaughtered.
Forgive my ignorance here, but why should a party in governmental power even be allowed to hold a leadership contest? The winner would, ipso facto, become a Prime Minister that the wider electorate never voted for. Surely this is unrepresentative of the country's mood?
From the sudden blizzard of programmes on the "real Gordon Brown" (that's someone quite different to the weirdo occupying the Chancellorship for the past 10 years, apparently), I have learned that Real Gordy is already in hock to Rupert Murdoch and will say anything not to frighten "middle England", often contradictory things.
Most of the comments from "friends" tend to confirm that Gordy is a poor manager/delegator and obsessive.
However, chief toady Ed Balls insists that Gordy is really awfully cuddly when you know him, and actually invented the concepts of delegation and decentralisation - most confusing.
Listened to your effort Nick.
Why so much time given to Neil (fresh-back-from-leading-his-clan's-raid-on-the-Euro-gravy-train) Kinnock ?
Vapid, gobbledygook as usual - at least something in New Labour is constant.
Also saw Marr's Panorama effort tonight, (why call it Panorama if it's just More Marr, so to speak ?)
Marr tried to square the circle of not saying anything nasty about Blair/keeping onside with Gordy(and little Gordy aka Balls)/and revealing something "insightful".
Conclusion : although most politicos have strong views on Gordy (whether for or agin'), the punditdom is keeping it's powder dry and kidding us that for them (sniff) the jury is still out.
So much more interesting when they actually 'take a position' or express an opinion - isn't that what punditry is supposed to be about ?
If the Sunday opening session of the conference is anything to go by then the Conference will be a sickening load of self-indulgent tripe.
Even delegates who had emergency motions on Trident, Iraq, or the leadership were not allowed to vote against the Conference Rigging Committee report. Videos and self-congratulatory claptrap was all we got.
The Radio 4 Gordon Brown interview this Monday morning was interesting. I don't care how cuddly Gordon Brown may or may not be. However for the first time ever I heard him clearly say what he thought about general policies.
Unfortunately the last hopes of my ever voting Labour again went crashing in flames with his profound self-delusion about Iraq and Bush. His casual dismissal of the analysis by the sixteen USA intelligence departments was just gob-smacking.
I can understand your Pride in the fact that the conference is held in Manchester. I was on (my 4th) Anti-Iraq-War march on Saturday, and as I marched around Albert Sqaure and G-Mex, with thousands of other people, I felt pride that this was going on in my home city.
I just hope that Blair get's the message. A die-hard Labour city like Manchester, whilst glad to host the Labour conference, considers its leader guilty of (at least) lying.
Enjoy your week up North Nick!
Nothing wrong with a bit of north west pride- Manchester is a great place.
In reply to comment 2- it is perfectly OK to have a leadership contest for a govt because we dont (as yet) vote for the Prime Minister but for our local MP's and until that changes, this is fine
Enjoy your time back home Nick!!!
Ah ha James but you see the electorate did not vote for Tony Blair to be Primeminister - and I'm not talking about the low turnout affecting the % that did vote for Labour but the fact that we vote for our local MP and whichever party has the most MP's forms the Government - so if Gordon Brown became leader he would still be the legitimate PM because Labour still have a majority and a majority based on an election where Labour were elected on a Manifesto Gordon backed - although thats another whole question! Fun Politics lesson over!
There is no such thing as "northwest pride", there are Mancs and Scousers. No amount of Prescottisation will kill that rivalry off!
Why are the political commentators not putting Brown and the other potential candidates under a bit more scrutiny? We need to know who our next prime minister is as we aren't going to have a chance to choose for ourselves (a bit like in Thailand).
So stop all this fawning guff and get on with some proper interrogation Nick.
So, it turns out (after all) that following all the bloodletting and the chaos and the backstabbing in the Labour Party in the last month the public have come to a conclusion: the Tory lead in the polls has been substantially cut.
There are Labour MPs breathing a little easier now in marginals whose careers were apparently going to be consigned to the dustbin.
Isn't that a challenge (again) to the prevailing view that the party is turning in on itself and away from the voters? The only ones saying this are the ones that don't want a proper debate.
The public are very forgiving of their politicians. In particular they don't expect them to paragons of peace and harmony any more than they expect the colleagues in their own workplaces to be!
They know what politicians are like. They make allowances for them. It's those politicians who simply do not understand this (who think the world sees them as great seekers of truth and justice)who pompously hold forth on political behaviour.
Brutus and Mark Antony, Tudor Houses and Stuart Houses, Gordon & Tony: 'twas ever thus. It's interesting and exciting and the bread and butter of politics which is (and always has been) about who holds power, how they achieve it, and how they keep it, for good or ill.
Thank goodness they're not all as boring as Mandelson.
TC
I watched Gordon on the Telly earlier Nick. He is not so good as Tony Blair, when he is answering the direct questions. That is, he cannot lie convincingly, and it seems he does not want to.
So I feel Gordon is in a bind as usual, trying to be truthful, and finding it hard to find anything he wants to talk about, without giving the game away.
And what game is that? Why of course, getting the leadership and doing things his way, the Brown way. Jeepers Creepers, this really is humbuggery and truthfully, dishonest behaviour by Blair and Brown.
Brown is stuffed because Blair is still there and Brown must tow the line or get fired. Blair won't quit and let Gordon get on with it.
Both end up in dishonest behaviour and being manipulative. Brown has no choice if he wants to be PM, Blair does.
Actually the right choice and the one Blair is happy to force, is for Gordon to resign and so both of them have to go. What a true friend Blair is, the sort of friend you would ditch as soon as you realise he is a nasty spoiler, the boy who takes his ball home when he gets a licking.
Sad days for labour, sad days for us all, as the labour party have lost their backbone so it seems. Spineless wonders, oh and its the chinless wonders next week? Can't wait, duh! What a real load of cobblers they all are!
It's nice of Blair to acknowledge that the Labour Party went AWOL from the British public. Does he realise that it happened about 5 years ago?
So Tony Blair is reminding the Labour party that it has gone AWOL from the public, and worse, from ordinary Labour voters? This from Mr-Iraq-with-added-Bush himself? Wonders will never cease. (Not in my name ...)
I regard it as an ironic disgrace, and certainly no honour, to Manchester, to host the Labour Party conference in the party's and leadership's current questionable moral state. From a Greater-Manchester born and bred retired academic/current housewife and former Labour voter.
Interesting to compare your view of the Labour conference with that of the LDs last week, at which I was a delegate.
Policies and the way to decide them (and influence them) matter to the LDs, I suspect Labour policies were taken out of their Conference hands long ago. Iraq - and Afghanistan - should matter more than they do to the public, but in an age where our politics increasingly resemble those of the USA, "its the economy, stupid!"
As long as GB keeps the housing booom rolling along with all the real labour that employs, from whatever source, the decline in manufacturing and now service industries will be masked. More privatisation is in store and JP's 1996 renationalisation promises are a blowin' in the wind.
Can I hear Keir Hardie turning in his grave? Someone ought to make power out of all the old Labour supporters in a constant state of underground revolution.....
Hi Nick,
Re: WARS IN IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN
I understand that throughout the whole of their stage managed, contrived conference, with its false show of unity and friendship, the 'LABOUR' Party will not be mentioning these wars at all.
Apart from being far to busy with their own petty, scheming, plotting and backstabbing each other, they daren't mention anything so real, painful and downright embarrasing as wars in foreign lands.
No matter that through their own lies and spin, they are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of British service men and women.
All the time they are making and listening to their inane pointless and meaningless speeches, and crying in their beer about possible losing their seats etc, I wonder will any of them spare a thought for the poor bloody squaddies, who are stuck in far off lands, which to be honest neither they or the public, give a damn about.
We all know that the truth is, these brave men and women are exhausted, overstretched, and short of everything from food, equipment, and even ammunition.
The Soldiers know the government lied to the public and themselves to get them sent to these terrible places, rather than say NO to George Bush.
All the guys will care about when they are there is looking after themselves and their buddies.
All they will think about is getting home to their families and friends.
As brave and professional as they all are, who can blame them for being scared stiff, not only of the car and suicide bombers, but of a government that will willingly throw then to the wolves and charge them for the slightest wrongdoing.
Even Prime Minister in waiting, 'Im a nice bloke really' Gordon, was to busy making his sales pitch, to mention something as negative as the wars. Enough said about him !
So to the Labour government (or NEW Labour, whoever you are these days) if you had any sense of values and decency left, you should feel utterly ashamed of yourselves.
You are not worthy to command the world's most professional armed forces, you are not fit to run this country.
Yet even now, after all this, 'Trust me Tony' is still hanging on, more concerned about his so called Legacy, than the fact that even more british troops who will inevitably die in the coming weeks, months and years.
GO NOW THE LOT OF YOU !!
"I'm in God's own city. That's Manchester to you. You'll have to forgive this north-west boy's local pride."
your not from the moss (Moss side, less than a mile away from the top brass venue right now)or wythenshawe (largest garden city in europe and home of manchester Airport) though are you Nick ?.
"PS: This is not, by the way, the first conference Labour has held in Manchester. It's the third. The Labour Representation Committee - the forerunner of the party - held the first here just a century ago - it lasted one day. The second was in January 1917, in Manchester's Albert Hall during the First World War."
and isnt it interesting that in *all* that time passed, they have only ever managed 3 in the birth place as it were.
a question Nick, how come given the vast size of Manchester, theres not been any coverage were the many manchester labour MPs have been interviewed for their take on the weeks events, after all its only right the national airtime should have some good slots for MANCHESTER MPs and MANCHESTER residents views for that matter, perhaps a televised round table event in wythenshawe civic center forum center .
I find it amazing the amount of people claiming they voted for Tony Blair as prime minister and that therefore there should not be a leadership election.
They didn't. They voted for an individual to represent them in parliament. That individual may, or may not, choose to support a particular leader. The man in the street has absolutely no say in who the prime minister is.
As for should it be Brown, I believe it should. He cares passionately (sp?) about this country (the UK) and he is the heavyweight politician we have been crying out for. We don't need anymore good looking spin merchants - just a good leader to take the country forward.
How can Manchester be God's own city?
It's not in Gods's own county (Yorkshire)!
I sincerely agree with David Page and his comment about Yorkshire!
The whole "battle" being fought here is pretty childish; Labour have made mistakes and by trying to put them right now, after pressure from the media etc. they are appearing adolescent. I just hope that it is weariness to blame after so long in power and not pure stupidity; Tony Blair however has always seemed to have been making fundimental mistakes.